Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Like Pauline, I have been reading a copy of the new book "Area 51" by Annie Jacobsen. There are many interesting stories in this book, but one in particular caught my eye (page 205.)

In April 1962 the NASA X-15 rocket plane was being flown between California and Nevada, by test pilot Joe Walker. Walker took photographs, and NASA released these. "But NASA had not scrutinised the photos closely before their public release, and officials missed the fact that a tiny "UFO" appeared in the corner of one of Walker's pictures. In reality, it was an Oxcart, but the press identified it as a UFO." (Click here.)

The Oxcart's full name was the Archangel-12 Oxcart, the CIA's Mach 3, black program, spy plane built by Lockheed. (Click here for more.)

Jacobsen continues, "Two weeks after the incident, the CIA's new director, John McCone, received a secret, priority Teletype on the matter stating that "on 30 April, A-12 was in air at altitude of 30,000 feet from 0948-106 local with concurrent X-15 tests." and that "publicity releases mention unidentified objects in film taken on an X-15 flight." This message, which was not declassified until 2007...In total 2,850 Oxcart flights would be flown out of Area 51 over a period of six years. Exactly how many of these flights generated UFO reports is not known."

My comments:

1. The USAF had three versions of the Oxcart; the YF-12A the attack version; one which carried a drone on its back; and the RS-71 Blackbird (later renamed the SR-71 Blackbird.) Did the A-12 or SR-71 ever visit Australia? I searched the net but couldn't find any references to it visiting Australia. However, one of my neighbours (now deceased), who at the time was based at RAAF Base Edinburgh, South Australia, once saw an SR-71 on the ground at that base.

2. I found that the CIA teletype which Jacobsen mentions, is available on the net on the CIA's webpage, click here, to read it for yourself.

It does raise a question in my mind, as to whether any Australian UFO reports were due to SR-71 aircraft? Do any readers have information about the plane in Australia?

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Annie Jacobsen, an investigative journalist living in Los Angeles, California, in the USA has done what few others have been able to do. She has written a definitive account of the top secret military base known as Area 51. However, what makes this new book so good, is that her information comes from insiders, people who worked at the base.

The book is titled "Area 51: An Uncensored history of America's top secret military base." Published in 2011 by Orion. London. ISBN 978-1-40914-1136.

Roswell:

Although the book features comments about UFOs throughout its length, this post concerns only part of Chapter 21 and the Epilogue. The chapter is titled "Revelation."

Jacobsen writes that "The reason why the federal government will not officially admit that Area 51 exists is not the secret spy planes, the stealth bombers, or the drones that were, and still are, flight-tested there. The reason is something else. It is a program undertaken by five EG&G engineers at Area 51. This program involved the Roswell crash remains..."

"Area 51 is named as such not because it was a randomly chosen quadrant, as has often been presumed, but because the 1947 crash remains from Roswell, New Mexico, were sent from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base out to a secret spot in the Nevada desert-in 1951." (p.367.)

Source:

What is Jacobsen's source for this extraordinary claim? It is a who, not a what. A man, whom Jacobsen interviewed multiple times. A former engineer who worked for the defence contractor EG&G.

The story he told Jacobsen is as follows. "The crash did reveal a disc, not a weather balloon...And responders from the Roswell Army Air Field found not only a crashed craft, but also two crash sites, and they found bodies alongside the crashed craft...They were human guinea pigs...They were grotesquely deformed...They had unusually large heads and abnormally shaped oversize eyes...Two...were still alive." (p.368.)

"The Atomic Energy Commission not the Air Force, and not the Central Intelligence Agency was put in charge of the Roswell crash remains." (p.368.)

Engineers working for the defence contractor EG&G "...were chosen to receive the crash remains and to set up a secret facility just outside the boundary of the Nevada Test Site..." (pp368-9.)

"The men from EG&G were told that the project they were about to work on was so important that it would remain black forever...The operation would have no name, only a letter number designation: S-4, or sigma-four." (p369.)

Puzzles:

"There were two puzzles to solve, not just one...There was the crashed craft that had been sent by Stalin-with its Russian writing stamped or embossed in a ring around the inside of the craft...no one working on the project...had been able to discern what made Stalin's craft hover and fly. Not even the German Paperclip scientists who had been assigned to assist...Reverse engineer it, Vannevar Bush said..." (pp369-70.)

The second puzzle was the humans found with the craft. The story which the engineers were told was that the German scientist Dr Josef Mengele, who experimented on people, joined forces with Stalin.

"The EG&G engineers were told that part of Joseph Stalin's offer to Joseph Mengele stated that if he could create a crew of grotesque, child-size aviators for Stalin, that he would be given a laboratory in which to continue his work." (p371.)

"When Joseph Stalin sent the biologically and/or surgically re engineered children in the craft over New Mexico hoping it would land there, the engineers were told Stalin's plan was for the children to climb out and be mistaken for visitors from Mars...This, says the engineer is what he and the others in the group were told." (p.372.)

Jacobsen writes of this informant that "He is the only one of the original elite group of EG&G engineers who is still alive." (p372.)

When Jacobsen queried the engineer "Why didn't President Truman reveal the truth in 1947?" she was informed ""Because we were doing the same thing," he said. "They wanted to push science...we performed medical experiments on handicapped children and prisoners." (p372.)

The engineer told Jacobsen that although they weren't doctors they conducted these experiments under the oversight of the Atomic Energy Commission.

Asked when the work had concluded "At least through the 1980's it was still going on." (p373.)

Atomic Energy Commission:

"According to my source, the Atomic Energy Commission conducted experiments on humans in a classified government facility in the Nevada desert beginning in 1951..." (p374.)

After relating historical known facts about Stalin and US President Truman Jacobsen writes "It follows that Stalin's black propaganda hoax-the flying disc peopled with alien look-alikes that wound up crashing near Roswell, New Mexico-could have been the Soviet Dictator's revenge for Truman's betrayal at Crossroads. The flying disc at Roswell,says the EG&G engineer , was "...a warning shot across Truman's bow." Stalin may not have had the atomic bomb just yet, be he had seminal hover and fly technology pilfered from the Germans and he had stealth." (p377.)

Jacobson's informant said that he knew about research into the Roswell disc's 'power plant.'"

"There was another [important] engineer ," he explains. That engineer was assigned the task of learning about Stalin's hover technology...we figured it out...We've had hover and fly technology all this time." (p379.)

Who flew the disc?

The engineer says he was told the flying disc was piloted remotely, but offered almost no information about what would have had to have been the larger aircraft from which this early 'drone' was launched." (p381.)

Comments:

I put down this book and a million questions came into my mind. Perhaps, though they all came down to just one in the end. How much, if any, of Jacobsen's source's information is true?

For, in the end, like Corso's "The Day After Roswell," we have a single source, telling an incredible story. I'm off to search the net to see what others are making of this book.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Best selling US author Tom Clancy (with Grant Blackwood) has a 2010 novel out titled "Dead or Alive" (published by Michael Joseph. New York. ISBN 978-0-718-15741-8.) It's the usual action packed spy and military novel we have come to expect from Clancy.

However, a section of page 756 came as a surprise to me, when I read it the other day. Clancy and Blackwood describe a truck driver, working for the US Government who undergoes a special training program. "Mostly they drilled him on emergency procedures: what to do of someone tried to high jack the load; what to do if he got into an accident; what to do if a UFO came down and beamed him out of the cab..."

Well, I know it's only a very small line in a fictional story, but it led me to wonder what Clancy's views were on the UFO phenomenon? Clancy has previously spoken of the very knowledgeable military personnel who he knows through his research for his novels.

I then recalled that Clancy had written a "commentary" for John B Alexander's 2011 book "UFOs:myths, conspiracies and realities," (published by Thomas Dunne books. New York. ISBN 978-0-312-64834-3.)

In the commentary (p. xix)Clancy opens with "Like most Americans, I've been reading about UFOs since I saw my first flying saucer movie back in 1954 or so."

Referring to Alexander's book "This book is, I think, maybe the first-ever look into a question that millions of people have, and more to the point, it's a look that asks questions and looks for hard answers...What he says you can take to the bank."

After speaking of the growth of our own technology "We can assume that UFOs, if they exist, have computer power such as we have not yet dreamed about, and what else can they do? Dimensional corridors that by-pass space-time? If so, then they can hop from place to place faster than the speed of light. Or even time travel? What we consider reality would be immensely limiting to the pilots of such craft.We cannot know, and even if we did know, could we understand? Probably, yes."

Comparing out state of knowledge of UFOs, Clancy concludes "And so it is with the UFO. We do not know how they, if they are real, operate. All we can do is to gather information, draw conclusions from it, then advance a step at a time in the hope of catching up."

Well, the blast of Antarctic air I mentioned was heading for Adelaide, has arrived. We are in the midst of a cold, wet, windy spell. A good reason to have visited my local library to read science magazines.

Mirage Men:

I was re-reading Mark Pilkington's book "Mirage Men: A Journey in Disinformation, Paranoia and UFOs" (published by Constable of London. 2010. ISBN 978-1-84529-857-9.)

I came across a section on US animal mutilations which included comments that some witnesses had seen "strange flying machines" in the area. As these objects flew over, some witnesses described hearing a "'put-put-putting' or 'ticking' sound."

The question was raised "Could they be the fabled black, silent helicopters of conspiracy lore?" (p.153.)

Black, silent helicopters have been part of the UFO scene for many years, and credited as perhaps the explanation for some UFO sightings. For example, there were suggestions that some of the 1975, US missile base intrusion reports might have been due to human flown helicopters testing the security of missile bases.

"Montana was rife with UFO activity, and reports of a mystery helicopter hovering over a missile site prompted Air Force officials to cooperate with local law enforcement in investigations of strange lights and apparent cattle mutilations..." (Bullard, T E. 2010. "The Myth and Mystery of UFOs." University Press of Kansas. p.32.)

Debate has raged as to the existence of "quiet" helicopters, and their relationship to the UFO phenomenon. Some say, "quiet" or "stealth" helicopters don't exist. Others argue they are real.

Interestingly, an article in the 14 May 2011 issue of "New Scientist" (number 2812, p.21) says they do exist.

The article is headed "Stealth helicopter's secret is out."

"They might have got their man, but US forces appear to have left behind the remains of a hitherto secret stealth helicopter after their raid on Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The troops attempted to destroy the evidence by setting fire to the downed machine, but large chunks survived. What was left suggests it was a modified Black hawk designed for stealth. The engine shroud has angles edges that may make it less visible to radar, and a disc-shaped cover over the tail rotor looks as if it should quell noise. People in the area reportedly did not hear the helicopters until they were overhead."

Comment:

You can find confirmation of the existence of some previously debated information in the strangest of places!

Friday, May 20, 2011

In Adelaide, we are having a short return to summer conditions today, before an icy blast from Antarctica comes in at the weekend.

Today's post features two short items related to SETI.

Signs of life in meteorites:

Remnants of an asteroid crashed to Earth in October 2008. Pieces were collected within 20 hours. "Astronomers have identified 10 different meteorite types within the recovered remains. After further analysis, they determined that some of these types contained amino acids and other important molecules of life."

NASA announced that its Kepler mission "...had discovered the first definitely rocky exoplanet...named Kepler 10b, it's also the smallest planet ever found outside the solar system, measuring 1.4 times Earth's size and weighing 4.5 times as much." However, it only "...takes 0.84 days to orbit its star..."

Thursday, May 19, 2011

You may be aware of my interest in the subject of contactees, from previous posts on this blog. I recently found such an account from right here in Adelaide.

Courtesy of Jerry Clark in the USA I recently obtained a copy of an article titled "UFOs and parapsychology" written by H. S. W. Chibbett, which appeared in the English "Flying Saucer Review" Special Issue Number 3, dated September 1969. (Click here.)

Harold Chibbett was a paranormal investigator in the United Kingdom. In 1956 he came across a copy of the "Australian Saucer Record" (ASR) (Volume 1 number 4, 1955) which contained an article on page 12 titled "Janet."

Janet:

"Janet" was the name given to a 10 year old Adelaide girl who was being treated by a hypnotist for a slight nervous disorder. On one occasion, when the hypnotist asked "Where are you now, Janet?" she replied "In a flying saucer."

The ASR article stated "The astonished hypnotist questioned her further and received a running commentary on a trip inside a saucer to another planet. She described the landing, the people and a kind of city - all as though it were actually happening and she were merely describing what she saw.

Members of the Australian Flying Saucer Research Society sat in on another hypnotic session. "Questioned by the hypnotist and three committee members in turn, she described a city and people, and even spoke to the people and asked them questions. We made many tests to discover if the whole thing was a hoax, finally establishing that, whatever the case might be, it was not a consciouses hoax on the part of Janet."

The article concluded:

"Janet is a normal schoolgirl, of average, or perhaps a little above average, intelligence; no more interested than most girls of her age in space travel or science fiction. Her interests lie in the direction of music and drawing rather than reading. During the experiment, she spoke in her normal voice. We give the story to our readers without further comment, beyond an assurance that the facts are completely accurate and adequately documented."

My comments:

I found this account, from the very early days of South Australian UFO Research of interest to my contactee studies.

Firstly, because it involved the use of material gained under hypnosis. You will no doubt be aware of the great debate about the value of information retrieved from abductees under hypnosis. Some UFO researchers believe hypnotically retrieved information to be tainted by the process used to retrieve it.

Secondly, the year was 1955. A recent search of Adelaide newspapers by myself, for the years 1954 and 1955 have revealed a greater number of published "flying saucer" reports than I had previously been aware of.

My catalogue "South Australian UFO Reports Listing" now contains 17 reports from the year 1954 alone.

If any reader would like a personal updated copy of the South Australian UFO reports listing, send me an email to keithbasterfield@yahoo.com.au and I will forward you a copy.

Monday, May 16, 2011

For those who have been following recent updates on the Rendlesham Forest UFO case - (click here) said by some to be "The British Roswell," here is more.

Fortean Times:

In an item on Rendelsham's 30th anniversary, Fortean Times magazine number 272 page 26, authors Andy Roberts and Dr David Clarke report that two key witnesses, Jim Penniston and John Burroughs returned to Rendelsham.

The column states "...the only real development was Jim Penniston's revelation that he is a contactee who receives telepathic communication from UFO occupants."

Also revealed, "...Penniston added more to the list by identifying yet another new location for the UFO landing site...He also admitted that he had previously led TV crews to the wrong place in the forest. Then there's the unresolved question of his notebook entry that gives the wrong date for the "close encounter" in the woods...The former airman now claims that the day after the encounter he received a "download" of 12 pages of binary code that he felt compelled to write down. Somehow, though, he overlooked mentioning this vital piece of information to anyone for 30 years!"

"The aftermath of the 30th anniversary saw even some diehard proponents willing to admit that these new embellishments had damaged the credibility of both the original stories and its narrators."

Comments:

For a comprehensive view of Rendelsham, based on the official UK Government file on the case, see Dr David Clarke's blog (click here)

As with Roswell, the debate as to what actually happened in Rendlesham Forest shows no sign of abating. For the average researcher such as myself the myriad pieces of information about this case, keeps getting ever more complicated, and therefore difficult to form an informed viewpoint.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The autumn rains have just started in Adelaide, showers all day today.

You will recall that I like to keep up with the comings and goings of the world of SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence.) Interesting note in the 30 April 2011 issue of New Scientist" magazine (Number 2810 page 5.)

"SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, has stopped at the Allen Telescope Array in California.

"The array listened out for alien radio communications until budget cuts by the National Science Foundation and the State of California called a halt to activity. The SETI Institute, which built the array, is seeking new funds."

Saturday, May 7, 2011

In my last two posts I wrote about the 1997 book "The Day After Roswell," and its effect on Paul Hellyer, a former Canadian Minister of Defence, in the 1960's.

I got to wondering who else might have taken Corso's book to heart and was surprised to find that Internet entrepreneur Joe Firmage was also a Corso supporter.

Firmage:

Joe Firmage was born in 1970 in the USA and became an Internet entrepreneur. Firmage and others founded a company called US Web in 1997. However, Firmage left the $2 billion company in 1999 after widely expressing his views about UFOs (source: click here.)

Firmage was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle as saying "I believe so much in this theory" and "I am in a unique position to communicate an extremely important message. i have the money, credibility, scientific grounding and faith." Firmage also related his support of the theory that some scientific advances came from the 1947 Roswell UFO crash.

In the Chronicle article, Firmage stated that he was leaving the company to ensure it "...is not impacted in any negative way." (Source: click here.) Other sources added that "To escalate matters, at the same time he began a very public campaign to attract readers to his online book, en tilted "The Truth", in which he talked about alien visitations, intergalactic travel and a host of unconventional economic and scientific theories..." (Source: click here.)

This source also stated "One of the things that certainly affected my life very deeply early on was the work of Carl Sagan."

Asked if his opinions had changed between 1998 and 2000 he responded "I wouldn't say I've reversed any position at all, but I've gained a clearer view on all the things I've written about, whether it be science, the trajectory of economics, extraterrestrial life, whatever."

His "visitation":

"I never said I was definitely visited by an extraterrestrial...those were not my words...What id id say is that I woke up one morning and experienced the appearance of a human-like figure in my room. And we proceeded to have a conversation about space travel. And five minutes later he was gone. Was it my future self? Was it an extraterrestrial, or the consciousness of one? Was it a sleep paralysis episode? Or was it simply a bad potato? I do not know..."

Elsewhere (source: click here ) the encounter is said to have been at 6.10am. "A remarkable being clothed in brilliant white light, appeared hovering over my bed in my room," he writes "Out of him emerged an electric blue sphere, just smaller than a basketball, which was swirling with what looks like electrical arcs. It left his body, floated down and entered me."

"The Truth":

His online book "The Truth" was released on the Internet. he stated that the impetus for the book was his own encounter, "authentic" Majestic 12 documents, and the discovery that the Roswell 1947 crash led to fiber optics, and integrated circuits, among other things. This latter belief appears to have come from reading Corso's 1997 book "The Day After Roswell."

"Firmage has been inspired to act on his new found knowledge because of a book he read by Eugene Linden...The Future in Plain Sight..."

Kairos:

Following his withdrawal from US Web in 1999, Firmage created "International Space Sciences Organization." This was "...dedicated to raising awareness of future technological breakthroughs, consciousness,and future civilisations." (Source: click here.)

Jump to 2011:

"These days, Firmage focuses on his original field of study, physics, and endeavors closer to home, like solving Earth's energy woes. He founded ManyOne, which states that it is dedicated to its "mission of building a network of socially responsible organisations and individuals." (Source: click here.) For the latest on ManyOne click here.

A Vallee aside:

As an interesting addition to Joe Firmage's views, I found the following.

In his forward to john Alexander;s book "UFOs: myths, conspiracies and realities" (Thomas Dunne Books. New York. 2011) Jacques Vallee comments:

",,,unidentified flying objects, a topic of frequent discussion among high technology entrepreneurs with whom I worked and networked in California, understandably so, since the apparent behaviour of these objects raised fundamental issues about physics, advanced materials and physiological reaction among human witnesses." (p xv.)

Comments:

It seems to me, that there remains many individuals currently quietly interested in the subject of the UFO phenomenon. However, their interest is just that, quiet, possibly even secret.

Here in Australia, I am not aware of any entrepreneurs who have openly voiced their interest in the UFO phenomenon.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Another delightful autumnal day in Adelaide. 19 degrees Celsius, and blue skies.

Yesterday morning, before work, I got up at 5am to take a look at the Eta Aquarid meteor shower, which was visible in the eastern sky. I saw a few bright meteors from this annual event. I like to keep up with my astronomical interests, as watching such things as meteor showers, lunar eclipses, planetary alignments etc, reminds me that we do indeed live on a small planet, orbiting an average star, orbiting the galactic centre. This reminder, then feeds into my UFO interests, which tells me that in such a vast universe there are others out there, and that someone is visiting us.

Today's post:

Following on from my recent post about the book "The Day After Roswell" (click here for my post) I came across a curious statement by Thomas E Bullard. On page 9 of his recent book "The Myth and Mystery of UFOs" he wrote:

"...Paul Hellyer, who served as Canadian defence minister and deputy prime minister but whose UFO opinions derived from reading Colonel Corso's book rather than from official knowledge."

This suggested to me that Bullard was saying Hellyer's beliefs about UFOs came solely from the book. I wondered if this was correct?

I went to Bullard's 2005 source (click here) which was given as an article by Gord Heath titled "Paul Hellyer and the Politics of Exopolitics" and read the article for myself.

Heath's article:

I'll quote parts of it below:

"Paul Hellyer, a former Minister of Defence in the Pearson Government, has announced his belief that UFOs are real and that the US is developing weapon systems which are to be used against alien craft entering earth's airspace. He voiced his opinions at the recent "2005 Toronto Exopolitics Symposium."

"In recent years he is one of many prominent Canadians who have opposed Canadian support and participation in the US National Missile Defence program (NMD) and supported calls for a ban on weapons in space.

"It is through these contacts that he began to encounter the views of persons who believe that the US is planning space based weapon systems to be deployed against ET controlled vehicles entering earth's atmosphere from space.

"Paul Hellyer states that his belief in ET visitation do not relate back to insider knowledge obtained from his time spent as minister of National Defence from 1963 to 1967."

"Hellyer states that his recent interest in UFOs was prompted by viewing Peter Jenning's TV documentary on the topic. He later read "The Day After Roswell" by Col. Philip J Corso...In response to those who question how he came to believe the contents of this specific book, Hellyer states that he personally spoke with an unnamed US General who assured him that all of this and more was true."

Jerrypippin:

I tracked down a transcript of Paul Hellyer's speech at the 2005 conference mentioned above, to read it for myself (click here for full version.) In part, it read:

"Later, since the turn of the century I have met some ufologists who have sparked my interest in the subject and provided me with significant research material. Among other things I was asked to watch a 2 hour television special put together by the late Peter Jenning for ABC News. I found it quite compelling...I concluded that anyone with an open mind would have to be convinced by what they heard and saw...

"It may have been that program that encouraged me to read a book that had been on my shelf for a couple of years. It is titled "The Day After Roswell," and was written by Lieutenant Colonel Philip J Corso, a US Army Intelligence officer who had been a member of president Eisenhower's National Security Council and later head of the Foreign Technology desk at the US Army's Research and development Department. It was one of the most fascinating books I have ever read. It is the unimpeachable source of what I am going to say to you today."

"Two or three of my friends have asked me if I didn't think that The Day After Roswell could be just some brilliant work of fiction. My answer was no. Not even with the imagination of someone like Yann Martel, author of The Life of Pi could anyone fake it. The book is replete with too many real names, real places and real dates to be fiction."

"Last summer when I was reading it at Arundel Lodge, I shared a few of the contents with my nephew, Philip. Not having read the book, he was more than a little skeptical. A couple of days later he phoned a retired United States Air Force general of his acquaintance to ask him about the book. "Every word of it is true , and more," the general told him...Last Tuesday I decided that it would be good to hear that assurance first hand. So I phoned the general who Philip had introduced me to at an aviation exhibition a few years ago. He seemed pleased to hear from me so I asked him about the quote concerning Corso's book. "Every word of it is true, and more," he repeated fro my benefit. We then spoke 20 minutes or so discussing the "and more" to the extent he could without revealing classified material. What he said was just as fascinating and compelling as the book. UFOs are real as the airplane flying overhead. That is my unequivocal conclusion..."

Comments:

Having read Paul Hellyer's speech for myself it would seem to me that his interest in UFOs derived from:

1. "Significant research material" provided by unnamed ufologists.2. Peter Jenning's TV special on UFOs.3. Reading the book "The Day After Roswell."4. Discussions with an unnamed US General.

This is quite different to Bullard's assertion that Hellyer's knowledge came from only from The Day After Roswell.

It goes to show you that, yet again, you need to read the source material for yourself.

Secondly, given that Hellyer did say, in his 2005 speech, referring to The Day After Roswell "It is the unimpeachable source of what I am going to say to you today,"and given that serious UFO researchers believe the book's main claim cannot be true, that this part of Hellyer's opinions are based on incorrect material.